Introduction to Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics service

Power BI
Dr.T.Abirami
Associate Professor
Department of Information Technology
Kongu Engineering College
abi.it@kongu.edu
9788654804

05/04/2025 Dr.T.Abirami/Associate Professor /IT/KEC 2
What Is Business Intelligence?
• To a collection of mathematical models and
analysis methods that utilize data to produce
valuable information and insight for making
important decisions.

Types of Users of Business
Intelligence:
• Analyst (Data Analyst or Business Analyst): They are the
statistician of the company, they used BI on the basis of historical
data priorly stored in the system.
• Head or Manager of the Company: Head of the company uses
Business Intelligence used to increase the profitability of their
company by increasing the efficiency in their decisions on the
basis of all the knowledge they discovered.
• IT Engineer
• Small Business Owners
• Government Officials: In the decision-making of the government.

Types of Decisions Supported by Business Intelligence:
• Strategic Level: The strategic level is the level where the
Heads of the company decide the strategies of any business.
• Tactical Level: Once the strategy is made though for handling
all the details and matters have a tactical level where all the
technologies and methodologies come under one umbrella.
This level is further responsible for continuously updating
the data.
• Operational Level: Operation decisions are made at this level.
Operational decisions help in operating the system.

Applications of Business
Intelligence:
• In Decision Making of the company by decision-makers of the
organizations.
• In Data Mining while extracting knowledge.
• In Operational Analytics and operational management.
• In Predictive Analytics.
• In Prescriptive Analytics.
• Making Structured data from unstructured data.
• In Decision Support System.
• In Executive Information System (EIS).

Business Intelligence Tools and Software
1.Tableau: A business intelligence and data visualization application that
enables users to connect to different data sources, build interactive
dashboards, and share findings with others.
2.Microsoft Power BI: A cloud-based business intelligence program that
enables users to connect to a variety of data sources, produce visualizations,
and communicate findings.
3.QlikView is a business intelligence and data visualization platform that enables
users to build interactive dashboards and examine data in novel ways.
4.Data visualization, reporting, and analytics tools are all included in SAP
BusinessObjects, a complete business intelligence suite.
5.IBM Cognos: A tool for performance management and corporate intelligence
that enables users to build reports, scorecards, and dashboards.
6.Data visualization, reporting, and analytics technologies are all part of the full
business intelligence suite known as Oracle Business Intelligence. Cont…

Business Intelligence Tools and
Software
7.Create dynamic dashboards and reports with MicroStrategy, a
business intelligence and data visualization tool.
8.Data visualization, reporting, and analytics tools are all part of the full
business intelligence suite known as SAS Business Intelligence.
9.TIBCO Spotfire is a business intelligence and data visualization
platform that enables users to build interactive dashboards and
investigate data in novel ways.
10.Looker: A tool for business intelligence and data visualization that
enables users to build interactive dashboards and investigate data in
novel ways.
Cont…

Advantages of Business Intelligence
1. Decision-making is improved
2. Efficiency gain: operations are
3. Better data management .
4. Greater visibility:
5. A better understanding of customers:
6. Cost savings
7. Better forecasting: evaluate past data and predict future patterns.
8. Competitive advantage
9. Collaboration is improved
10.
Better Monitoring: tracking important metrics like revenue, customer happiness, and staff performance and in
monitoring performance.

Disadvantages of Business
Intelligence
1.Complexity: The implementation and upkeep of business intelligence systems can be
extremely difficult and complicated. This may be a drawback for companies with
constrained IT resources.
2.High costs: Some businesses find it prohibitively expensive to implement and purchase
business intelligence technologies.
3.Business intelligence strongly depends on accurate and current data. The insights
produced by business intelligence technologies could not be accurate if the data is
inconsistent, erroneous, or incomplete.
4.Data Security: Business intelligence systems handle and store a lot of sensitive data,
which, if not adequately protected, is susceptible to security breaches.
5.Dependence on IT: Because business intelligence solutions frequently rely largely on IT
assistance, it may be challenging for enterprises to quickly get the data they require.
6.Limited scalability: For firms with huge data volumes, business intelligence solutions
may not be able to handle enormous amounts of data.

Power BI is the collection of software apps, services, and
connectors that turn the raw data into meaningful, immersive,
and interactive insights.

What is Power BI?
• It is a business intelligence tool that allows to connect to various
data sources, visualize the data in reports and dashboards, and then
share
Power BI is made up of 3 main elements:
1.Power BI Desktop - a free desktop application for building and designing
reports.
2.Power BI Service - the online publishing service for viewing and sharing
reports and dashboards.
3.Power BI mobile apps - for viewing reports and dashboards.

Advantages of Power BI
• Supports natural query languages

and does not require
users to learn complex new query languages.
• It is very secure as it receives regular updates from
Microsoft.
• Power BI can be easily integrated with various cloud
services such as Azure.
• Users can customize the Power BI dashboard according to
their requirements. This provides a seamless user experience.

Natural language query (NLQ)
•It is a capability in BI software solutions that allows
people to ask questions of data within their analytics
platform, using everyday language as they would to
another person, to find information they need to
make business decisions.

Disadvantages of Power BI
• Power BI requires users to have emails from the same
domain to exchange reports with each other.
• Real-time data from various sources is not supported. Only
limited sources can work with real-time data in Power BI.
• Dashboard does not accept or pass user, account, or other
object parameters.
• The maximum supported file size in Power BI is limited to 250
MB.

Features of Power BI
• Mobile app support
• Regular Updates
• Supports very large databases
• Support to analyze data in excel
• Automatically refresh data
• Easily integrates with the other Microsoft products
• Create beautiful visualizations

How Does Power BI Compare to Other Tools Like Tableau
and Excel?
1.Power BI only works on Windows, whereas Tableau
supports Windows and MacOS.
2.Pricing options differ between Power BI and Tableau.
However, Tableau is generally the more expensive option.
3.Excel is spreadsheet software. - it has limited visualization
options and lacks the ability to refresh, share, and view
reports and dashboards online.

Downloading and Installing
Microsoft Power BI Desktop
• Step 1 : Create a Microsoft login
• Step 2 :
https://www.microsoft.com/enus/download/details.aspx?id=58494

Processes involved in solving the issue
utilizing BI software:
1.Data Collection
2.Data Storage
3.Data Cleaning
4.Data Analysis
5.Visualization
6.Decision

Step 1 - Data Collection in Power BI

2. Data Storage in Power BI
• Power BI interacts seamlessly with both Microsoft and non-
Microsoft products,
• including Spark,
• Hadoop,
• Google Analytics,
• SAP, Salesforce,
• Office 365,
• Dynamics 365, and
• SharePoint.
cloud-based BI tool

3. Data Cleaning in Power BI
• Power Query includes a staggering array of functions
devoted to aiding you in cleaning and preparing your data
for analysis. By choosing the Transform data option on the
Home tab of Power BI Desktop,

What is Query Editor?
• Query Editor in Power BI is used to edit or format the data
files before they are loaded into the Power BI Model.
• The Query Editor plays the role of an intermediate data
container where you can modify data type or the way the
data is stored by selecting the particular rows and
columns.

The Power Query Editor window
would be opened as follows,

4. Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) in Power BI
• A collection of functions and operators known as Data
Analysis Expressions (DAX) can be combined to create
formulae and expressions in Excel data models for Power
BI, Analysis Services, and Power Pivot.
• several Data Manipulation Functions like
DAX Aggregation Functions, DAX Date and Time Functions,
and DAX Math and Trigonometric Functions, etc.
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dax-aggregate-functions-in-power-bi/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/power-bi-dax-date-functions/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/power-bi-dax-trigonometric-functions/

05/04/2025 30
5.Data Visualizations in Power BI
• Add visuals to our reports
Dr.T.Abirami/Associate Professor /IT/KEC

Basic Maps To link numerical and categorical data to geographic
places, use a simple map.

Card Visualization
• A single fact or piece of data is displayed on single
number cards. A single statistic, such as total sales, market
share year over year, or total opportunities, may
occasionally be the most crucial element you want to
measure in your Power BI dashboard or report.

6. Decision through Dashboards and Reports in Power BI
• Like a canvas, a Power BI dashboard can be used to
convey a story. It offers the most crucial information in a
variety of forms on a single page. Below shown a Super
Store Dashboard based on the earlier dataset.

Common Mistakes to Avoid
• Improper labeling in the Dashboard.
• Overuse of Colors.
• A large number of Slicer.
• Importing the Entire Data.
• Eliminate non-essential interactions between visuals.

Sample Dashboard

Components of the Power BI Desktop:
• Ribbon - the top ribbon contains most of the controls and options needed for
building the report.
• Views - this is made up of the report view, the data view, and the model view.
• Canvas - this is the main design area where visualizations and other elements
are added.
• Page selector - for navigation to other pages in the report.
• Filters - fields can be added here to filter the data.
• Visualizations - this contains the list of available visualizations.
• Fields - this section contains the tables and fields that are available in the data
model.

Step 1: Connect to the Data Source
• Open Power BI Desktop.
• Click on Get Data in the Home tab.
• Select your data source (e.g., Excel, SQL Server, etc.) and click
Connect.
• Follow the prompts to load your data.

Step 2: Clean the Data
Remove Duplicates
• Go to the Home tab in the Power BI ribbon.
• Select the column containing duplicate data.
• Click on Remove Duplicates.
Handle Missing Values
• Use Replace Values to substitute missing data with a specific value.
• Alternatively, use Remove Rows to delete rows with missing values.

Step 3: Transform the Data
⚠️Data Needs Cleaning: If you suspect your data contains issues, click
on Transform Data to access Power Query Editor.
🧐 Data Structuring Required:
• Ensure that each column has the correct data type (e.g., dates as
Date, numbers as Decimal).
• Check that text fields are appropriately classified.
• Proper structuring maintains data integrity and ensures accurate
analysis.

Step 4: Apply Data Modeling
• Create relationships between different tables if necessary.
• Define calculated columns or measures as needed for your analysis.

Step 5: Load Data into Power BI
• Once your data is cleaned and modeled, click on Close & Apply in the
Power Query Editor to load the data into Power BI for visualization.

Clustered column chart

Stacked bar chart

Funnel

Pie chart

Card

Slicer

Table

Matrix

Assignment 1

Transform data
Convert unstructured data into structured data

Introduction to Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics service

Step 1 :
Remove column 2 – why is all rows are null

Column2 –Right click - Remove

Go to Transform main menu – Select first row as header

Step 2 : Use first row as Header

Assignment 2

Step 1
Q&A Visualization

Ask a question about your data based on your excel sheet
values : for example : Number of region , Number of states

Key influencers
Key influencers

Transform the Data
Insert a new Column and add name of the month :
Add Column – Select date – Month – Name of the month

Transform the Data
Create a new Column and generate Revenue:
Add Column – custom column – Month – Name of the month

Newly added a column

Select whole number data type – then –file-close and apply (mode changes to Load)

Month is not in order – goto table view - select month name column –
Select sort by column – month – move to report view –
in x axis remove column and add month name then check in bar charge now sorted

Increase the bubbles size

Slicer

Assignment 2

References
• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/power-bi-tutorial/?ref=lbp
• https
://microsoftlearning.github.io/PL-300-Microsoft-Power-BI-Data-Analy
st/Instructions/Labs/02-load-data-with-power-query-in-power-bi-des
ktop.html
• https://www.dynamicssquare.ca/blog/clean-up-transform-and-load-d
ata-into-power-bi/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgzGqoq3Xuc&t=4223s

Introduction to Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics service

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